How does business power operate? A framework for its working mechanisms

The global financial crisis of 2008, its following bank bailouts, and associated corporate impunity sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the structural power of business and the question of “who rules?” in capitalist societies. This new wave of scholarship mitigated some of the problems of the original, theory-driven discussions from the 1970s and 1980s. But despite significant advancements in the empirical identification of business power, we lack a unified framework for studying its working mechanisms. So-called hybrid approaches, drawing on instrumental and structural power for their analyses, display high potential for such a unified and easily applicable framework. We build on this hybrid tradition and propose a novel model that integrates instrumental and structural power analysis into a basic framework. With this, we recalibrate the often rigid division between instrumental and structural power forms and emphasize the role of perceptions as key for understanding the dynamics of business power over time. We illustrate this parsimonious framework by an analysis of the plans of the Dutch government to abolish a dividend tax in 2018 that would have benefited a number of large multinationals but collapsed before implementation.

Structural Power, Systemic Poverty, and Entrenchment Among African American Males

Poverty and structural power are immensely broad phenomena shaping economic and social architectures of societies globally. However, among the depth of complex mechanisms covertly functioning to perpetuate poverty, this chapter identifies structural power as one of the critical social constructs influencing systemic poverty. To explore structural power as a social force influencing systemic poverty, as a conceptual framework, and as means to support the overtone of social injustice, throughout this chapter an adaptation of the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) model is used. Through a more narrowed approach, the researcher uses the ACE model to explore structural power and systemic poverty through four experiential factors: educational, social, physical, and psychological. The experiences are motived by structural power and defined within the context of systemic poverty to explore the influence of those experiences on entrenchment of African American males later in adulthood.

Collective Autonomy: Why Groups Fight for Power and Status

People experience “collective autonomy restriction” when they believe other groups want to restrict their own group from freely expressing its social identity and determining its behavior. We review emerging research on the negative consequences of collective autonomy restriction for well-being, as well as its implications for group members’ motivation to fight for their place within social hierarchies. We propose that group members desire two resources tied to having a favorable position within the social hierarchy – structural power (i.e., the ability to influence and resist influence from other groups) and status (being positively valued and perceived as moral by others) – because they believe that having power and status are necessary to secure their group’s collective autonomy. We hypothesize that group members anticipate that other groups might restrict their group if they lack the structural power to resist outside influences, or if they are perceived as negative or immoral and worthy of restriction. We apply this power and status perspective of collective autonomy restriction to predict (1) when disempowered groups are most likely to fight against (vs. tolerate) their disadvantaged position and (2) when powerful groups are most likely to relinquish power and acknowledge their transgressions (versus defensively maintain their privileged position).

Structural Power in Sustainability Transitions: Case Studies of Energy Storage Integration Into Regional Transmission Organization Decision Processes

Highly technical rules for regional electricity markets shape opportunities for new technologies and the pace of transition to a cleaner and more distributed power system. We compare three case studies of regional transmission organizations and identify common mechanisms that describe the relationship between institutional design and administrative policy decisions. We compare industry actors, old and new, across these case studies to better understand structural power and institutional stability through four mechanisms drawn from the literature: (1) self-reinforcing interests, (2) participation in and position of groups, (3) influence over communication and information, and (4) control over problem framing and pace of decisions. A focus on the mechanisms that operate within RTO governance provides insight into needed RTO governance reform.

Cultural Humility: The Bias Checker

Historically we have been taught to understand and embrace cultural competency, however, this focus has often led to a superficial understanding of others and seldom required one to better understand themselves. Cultural humility is based on one’s ability to engage in individual accountability and institutional accountability. Individual accountability is based on critical self-reflection and critique, lifelong learning, and the challenging of power imbalances. Institutional accountability requires one to challenge structural power. This session will: (1) explore ways to engage in critical self-reflection and critique; (2) describe how values and beliefs impact the interactions of our personal and professional lives; and (3) strategize ways to collectively model and practice in cultural humility in one’s personal and professional life.

The Role of Switzerland in European Electricity Governance

This chapter explores the political influence of Switzerland as a non-EU country in European electricity governance. We argue that the influence of non-EU countries depends on their access to European governance institutions and their structural power resources. We further posit that the type of structural power resources circumscribes the specific areas of influence. The empirical analysis assesses these variables qualitatively based on interview and other primary data. First, it shows that Switzerland has relatively high access to important European governance bodies. Second, it reveals that Switzerland possesses structural power in serving as a European transit hub for electricity and an important source of technical expertise. Third, it confirms our theoretical expectation that Switzerland acts as a shaper in European electricity governance. Swiss influence is especially seen in matters related to grid management and cross-border electricity trade. Limitations to Swiss influence are often rooted in the legal principles of the EU internal market. Our findings qualify claims about a marginalization of Switzerland in European electricity governance. At the same time, we highlight uncertainties resulting from the present lack of an electricity agreement between Switzerland and the EU. Our chapter recommends Swiss policy-makers to strive for viable forms of energy cooperation with the EU and to strengthen the transit function and technical expertise of the country.

Regulation

This article reviews the literature on regulation in International Political Economy. It shows that during recent decades, the study of this topic gradually shifted from a positivist to a more sociologically-informed understanding of the formation, reproduction, and change of regulatory orders. This evolution, it is argued, was motivated by various attempts at locating the plural and often contingent appearances of power in these settings—including the (infra)structural power of firms, the structural mismatches between global and domestic regulations, and the manipulation of regulatory ideas and concepts. Research on financial regulation in the post-crisis era was instrumental in this turn.

An empirical assessment of the relationship between Information Intensity and IT Leaders’ Role and Structural Power

Using the theoretical lens of the contingency approach to leadership, this study explores the relationship between the information intensity of the organization’s value chains and IT leaders’ role and structural power. Based on data obtained from a sample of 174 Australian IT senior executives, a multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) is used to empirically test for differences between the IT leader’s role and structural power in high and low information intensive organizations. Findings suggest that value chain information intensity significantly influences the importance of individual CIO roles as well as the combined operational (supply) and strategic (demand) groups of roles. However, the IT leaders’ structural power was found to be unrelated to the level of information intensity of the organization. Implications and future research directions are discussed.